My Creative Workbook

Christine de Beer - effortless floral craftsman

Going Cold Twinkle Turkey

This is always a week filled with separation anxiety when the Christmas tree is packed away and nothing blinks, twinkles or sparkles...

Going Cold Twinkle Turkey Floral Art Design

Is it better to go Cold Twinkle Turkey and embrace the minimalist living room or rather ease into it?

Floating Tulips

What you need is a diversion, I say. Something that is really quick and easy to do but still captures the imagination...

Float tulips in a shallow dish

Clean, devoid of all tinsel and Christmas twinkles, just pure meditative beauty.

Wax snow flakes and film frost

See it as making space for all the exciting new things to come...

Winter frost and ice tulips

And celebrate the beauty of winter.

Tulips float on water

Tulips float freely on a frozen snow pond... Well, in my imagination anyway

Every week I add a new design with related tutorials. Be sure to subscribe to receive an email notification with design inspiration.

Tutorials

4 December 2013 Large wax snowflakes

Artificial snow can be very "chemical" and flowers deteriorate quickly when exposed to it. It also dissolves in water. I use candle wax as "snow"

3 January 2012 Bubble raft to float flowers

Flowers naturally float in water. They just don’t always naturally float on water. For that they sometimes need a bit of help.

3 January 2012 Cellophane wrap cracked ice

Cellophane and plastic wrap in a clear vase, filled with water, creates a cracked ice effect

Favourite Flowers

Tulipa

Tulip

Related Designs

22 September 2012 Turning of the leaves

An Autumn Equinox design that captures the moment before the spectacular colour burst of autumn floats around again

7 October 2015 Down-bubble

Add grass "bubbles" that can be repositioned to your design

10 February 2016 Be My Twig-Heart

Glue an upright twig heart for a freestanding Valentine's display

1 March 2017 Gumusservi

To celebrate the 6th year anniversary of My Creative Workbook I am looking at the most popular Tutorial I have done to date:

7 June 2017 Dream, Job

Create a grid to rest some plant material so that it floats and some with their stems to rest in the water below

6 December 2017 While I sing of beauty's treasure

Glue the most delicate twig table top Christmas tree

17 January 2018 Flowering Between a Rock and a Hard place

Create a subtle contrast by floating or anchoring some of your design elements.

11 July 2018 Stay-a-Float

Snip florets from a hydrangea mop head to float on water

5 December 2018 Personal Preference

The third design I did for my book launch demonstration looking at aspects that influences my effortless style of designing.

23 January 2019 Do they have cold feet?

Keep flower stems upright with a folded cellophane plastic support that looks like cracked ice.

4 September 2019 Gently down the stream

A mindful summer craft using banana leaves to create a floating arrangement.

20 November 2019 Not just a pretty face!

Design 2 of my three week pre-Christmas designing series looking at How to style with artificial plants and branches using quality faux plants and stems. This week: wired branches

20 May 2020 Whatever floats your boat

This is one of my best known and still my go-to core techniques for floating flowers.

20 January 2021 Hope Bubble

That good old double vase trick... but this time I deliberately added a bubble between the two layers to create a third circle in the design.

7 July 2021 Do and Don'ts

One of my trusty tried and tested techniques. When the going gets hot... float your flowers!

3 August 2022 It's a Heatwave!

Deep water design for extremely warm weather.

1 February 2023 Why When

An old tulip trick in a new way to keep the flowers fanned out

17 May 2023 Purple haze… float

Softest Wisteria colour to cool things down on an unexpectedly warm day.